On the Trail by Silas Chamberlin

Author:Silas Chamberlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300224986
Publisher: Yale University Press

Long Trail sign, 1924. In the 1920s, Vermont’s Long Trail became the nation’s first long-distance trail. Courtesy of University of Vermont Special Collections Library.

The debate over trail design came to a head in January 1917. As Monroe constructed the trail, he recruited a number of like-minded volunteers from the New York and New Jersey area to help. Having given generously of their time, money, and labor, these volunteers reasonably desired to join the Green Mountain Club by forming a New York area chapter. In 1916, Monroe formally requested permission to do so. Club officers who had grown increasingly frustrated with Monroe opposed the chapter, first, because Monroe’s contingent threatened their control over trail policy and, second, because they believed that the club was intended primarily for Vermont residents. Monroe, now angry that the club accepted the volunteers’ free labor but denied them membership, asked whether the club’s constitution prohibited forming out-of-state chapters. Sensing a crisis that might split the club, President Proctor organized a meeting between the two groups. Monroe’s backers stated their case for skyline trails and chapter status, while traditionalists spoke of 15 percent grades and a club for Vermonters. The heated discussion threatened to derail the meeting, until the seasoned Taylor rose and stated definitively that he envisioned the Long Trail as “a high, scenic mountain pathway.” This statement, from the man who founded the club, implicitly endorsed Monroe’s approach and effectively undermined the opposition. Within a year, the New York chapter had more than 150 members, and the club shifted from graded mountainside paths to ridgeline trails.16

By 1920, the club had resolved its vision and, thanks in large part to Monroe’s volunteer trail building, the Long Trail extended 209 miles, from the Massachusetts border to Johnson. As the Long Trail became a reality, the Green Mountain Club grew in membership and capacity. The club continued building shelters along the trail and added several elaborate, multi-room lodges. For example, the Proctor family once again stepped forward to fund Long Trail Lodge at Shelburne Pass, which provided an unheard-of level of luxury in the backwoods. “This artistic structure fits into its wild, natural setting without a jarring note,” one hiker recalled. “One finds a family atmosphere with all of the conveniences of a hotel, and the club’s hospitality remains one of the delightful episodes of the trip.” Meanwhile, Robert Hulburd, an attorney and former lieutenant governor of Vermont, funded an extension of the trail fifteen miles northward from Johnson to Belvidere Mountain.17

At the Green Mountain Club’s organizational meeting in 1910, members said that their goal was “to make Vermont’s mountains play a larger part in the life of the people.” By 1926, they could look back on more than fifteen years of progress toward fulfilling that vision. “Where eight or ten summits were provided with paths twenty years ago, fifty or more are now within reach,” the club’s chronicler wrote. “Where the trails available then were sometimes vaguely marked or poorly planned, the paths to-day are designed not

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